'Tis the Season To Be ...

Forgiving towards those who cause us distress, pain, and hardship. Let's assume that they did so through ignorance, inattention, or misunderstanding, rather than from malice, greed or envy.

Generous towards those whose lives would be improved by some small effort on our part. Give unwanted presents and other items to a charity, sell them and donate the money, share your good fortune by regular contributions throughout the year, or become a volunteer for a worthwhile cause.

Understanding of the foibles, fears, hang-ups and other "issues" that affect everyone, and which sometimes result in actions and reactions which are inexplicable or inappropriate.

Gracious towards those whose talents, skills, fortunes or relationships seem better than ours.
Resolute in the face of misfortune, injustice, and other calamities not of our making. Not being responsible for causing a situation doesn't mean we can't be responsible for fixing it.

Honest about our mistakes and errors of judgement. Trying to cover it up or, worse, shifting the blame to someone else is often tempting, but always makes the situation worse in the end, and adds to our own burden of guilt.

Patient with those who seem to be "wasting" our time. Rather than getting irritated and frustrated, let's assume that they are trying their best, or that they have other things on their minds.

Optimistic that the above virtues can be sustained just a little longer than they were last year. Perhaps even into the second week of January?

Realistic about success in this and all other endeavours. All we can do is our best with what we have.

Above all, let us be kind to ourselves and others, regardless of achievements, and certainly despite a lack of them.

Happy New Year everyone.

Forebears and Bugbears

Ancestors
Having grown up knowing almost nothing about my extended family, due to the disinterest of my parents in their relatives, it has been a great surprise for me to suddenly develop a passion for genealogy. Unfortunately I have left my investigation rather late, because most people from even my parents' generation have died, but thanks to the intrusive internet it is possible to unearth the sorts of facts previously found only in family stories or possibly the Family Bible.
Disappointingly, I have not yet discovered anyone particularly newsworthy or infamous among the 750 or so leaves of the family tree I have so far identified, but the exercise has given me several points to ponder:

• The general expectation of a young woman in the 19th century must have been that she would bear 10 or more children, usually at intervals of a year or two. 
• She would expect several of her children to die at birth or in infancy, and that she herself would probably die before she was middle-aged, most likely from infection, often as a result of pregnancy or childbirth.
• Young men would expect to leave home in their mid-teens and then to spend almost all of their time working, often away from home. They usually married young, and began almost immediately to produce as large a family as possible.
• It was very common for one parent to die while some of the children were still very young, and the remaining parent usually married again, often starting another family.
• Any parent who managed to survive into old age always went to live with one of their children, usually an unmarried one.
• Hardly anyone got divorced (although there is no reason to suppose that marriages were generally any happier or unhappier then than they are now).
• Young orphans were far more common than today, leading to more formal or informal adoptions.
• Families sailing from the UK to Australia not infrequently lost or gained a child during the voyage.

None of these are fresh or insightful observations, but the point is that these people were my family. They are not characters in a novel or part of a sociological treatise on "19th Century Life in the Colonies". My own (extremely unusual) middle name pops up at least once in each generation, tying me firmly to these women whose lives were unimaginably different from my own.

So one question is foremost in my mind as I unravel these histories ... "Could I have coped with lives like theirs?" Of course that is impossible to answer and therefore pointless to ask, but nevertheless I feel ashamed to say that I doubt it very much indeed.

Incensors

(as in "things which incense me", not "things for waving incense about")

I am implacable about fairness, and this frequently gets me into trouble. My friends charitably call this behaviour "standing up for what is right" or "speaking out against injustice and deceit".

Just as accurately, my critics label me as a "troublemaker", 

or to use a more vivid expression, a "shit-stirrer".

Keeping out of trouble, avoiding confrontation, minding my own business, not fighting other peoples' battles for them, letting things be, remembering my (inferior) position, sticking to battles I can win ... these are lessons I seem to be unable to learn.

Most people very sensibly prefer a quiet life, and try to avoid situations which will cause them distress. Of course that doesn't mean that they are any less fervent about injustice than people like me - they just have a more self-protective way of dealing with it. And if someone else seems not just willing but actually eager to go into battle on their behalf, why not let them?

I have previously described two of my futile battles this year, but no sooner had those wounds healed than I was hurling myself pointlessly back into the fray. The same two "Goliaths" continued to raise my ire throughout the year by persisting in their shabby treatment of students and volunteers respectively, so after a very short period of meekly acknowledging those in "authority", I resumed my doomed campaign on behalf of those they treated with such disrespect. 

Of course the natural reaction of anyone to a persistently annoying pest is to swat it, which is precisely what happened (again).  

Will I ever learn not to keep trying? 

Probably not.

A Few Aphorisms

Nothing original today, and nothing cynical or world-weary either, for a change.
Instead, here are some quotations which mean a lot to me, and which might speak to you too.

The first one is as close as I will ever get to having my own motto.
I discovered it as an embroidered sampler in an historic cottage, with the name and date "Ann Hewson 1780". I was quite young at the time, but even so I felt that it perfectly mirrored my own outlook on life, so I copied the words and laboriously embroidered my own sampler, serendipitously finishing it exactly 200 years after Ann signed hers.
It still resonates with me all these years later ...

Learn by the bee from each event to find
Some hint of use or profit to your mind.
Nothing so small but you may draw from thence
Improvement for your virtue or your sense.

The next one is a lot less ponderous, but a very useful reminder that our lives are neither as important nor as serious as we may think. It's from Jerry Seinfeld.

Life is truly a ride. We're all strapped in and no-one can stop it. ...
Sometimes you put your arms up and scream, sometimes you just hang on ...
I think the most you can hope for at the end of your life
is that your hair's messed, you're out of breath, and you didn't throw up.

Life is full of uncertainty, and sometimes the number of necessary decisions seems overwhelming. Lewis Carroll's eternally untroubled Cheshire cat has the answer.

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

It's unashamedly sentimental, but this quote from an American author named Agnes Sligh Turnbull never fails to bring a lump to my throat, and I'm sure it will do the same to anyone who has loved and lost a dog. (Vale Tess, Kimba, Mtani, Zu, Harry, Taka and all the similarly precious memories of my friends.)

Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really.

Then, of course, there was Douglas Adams. Almost everything he said or wrote makes me respond "Yes!", so it is impossible to choose my favourite from thousands of insightful comments. Fortunately, there are many sites (such as this one) which share his witty wisdom, so for those who are unfamiliar with his view of the world, I'll close with this particularly pithy example.

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry
and has been widely regarded as a bad move.